And so, it begins..... again.

this week, I had the strange feeling of having my free will ripped from me for a period of 2-3 hours.

Well, maybe thats a bit strong. more like i found myself, after a string of random occurrences, having to make a decision, which wasn't really a decision. more like reality, the universe, god, 'the secret,' my subconscious, my inner child, my conscience, whatever you want to call it, telling me which i will choose, that that choice is the choice i will make, and the consequences are a part of my life.

I stood in the bookshop for close to 30 minutes, looking at the book in my hands, realising all of this, wondering how this was possible. 'what if I don't read this?' I asked this feeling (in my head obviously, i'm not that mad yet) and it seemed to laugh at the question, and asked 'what do you mean? you already know you're going to buy it and read it. reread the blurb again, but its not going to change. this book has the information you've been looking for, for a very long time, at any given opportunity. are you really going to just walk away, now that it is right here?'

I went through the stuff that had brought me there that morning. an appointment in the city, that had been cancelled as i made my trip, without me realizing. 'maybe on the way back i'll look in a bookshop,' I thought as i left.
then I had to get petrol. after that, and getting on the Highway, i could smell petrol, and a lot of it. I got off the highway, and stopped at a park. there was no more petrol smell. I left, deciding to go home the slightly longer way, through strathpine.
I saw the bookshop that I ended up going to, but too late. I whizzed past that one like I did the other ten or fifteen I'd seen on the way home. until a truck changed lanes very close in front of me, and braked very suddenly, and very quickly to a stop, right next to a carpark. I turned in there to avoid the truck, and then decided, what the hell, i'll go to that bookshop up the road. its not too far a walk.

I got in there just in time to hear the bookshop owners friend telling her about the book i was now thinking about buying. As I walked in and looked for the section I always look for, I half heard their conversation. A few key words and phrases, until I realised what i was hearing.
 It couldn't be. I had been looking for something like this for years. i found bits and pieces, but never something that put it all and more together. I guess, to find out, I had to ask.
So I did. I asked about the book, who wrote it, really any question i could think of. How she had heard of the book (she is training to teach yoga, it was part of the reading list), etc. I read the blurb, those annoying quotes that say how great the book is, the preface and the introduction of the author.

As I heard and read more, I knew I had to, and wanted to, read this book. Of course I had a choice, but then again I didn't.
none of these events were huge signs screaming, 'get this book,' but they didn't need to be. they are not the reason I got the book either. It was the feeling I got as I held it in my hands.
some people probably scoff at the idea of Gods plan, fate, destiny, the Pattern of the Weaving of the world and/or the idea that the intrinsic nature of Free Will is the very thing that shows it to be an illusion and that all actions great and small therefore contribute to some vast, imperceivable and predetermined higher process.
But, no matter what you think, when you hear the Call, you would have to be either incredibly ignorant or insane to ignore it, Because it will just get stronger, and harder to ignore.
And it'll seem awfully quiet when it finally gives up.

le libre de jonah

i read the book of jonah,  just randomly. i think its my favourite story in the bible. not that i've read the whole thing, but i don't think you need to see everything to know what your favorite of a particular thing is. that at least rings true in my mind.

anyway, we all know the story of jonah and the whale, to some degree. the story i heard when i was little missed out on some crucial details in the story. so many, in so many different places, so consistently, that i'm just going to have to retell the story (shortened/summarised) and then talk about it afterwards. or during. whichever.

so jonah was doing whatever he was doing, and then god told him to go to ninevah, and tell them He was going to destroy it, because it was wicked.
jonah was like 'you won't destroy it, you are a loving god. why should i go over there and tell them that something that isn't going to happen will happen? i'll be embarrassed, and ashamed. i'm going to spain, in the opposite direction.'
so he got on a ship in joppa and started on the journey across the mediterranean for spain. as is surprisingly common in the mediterranean, a ship-breaking storm rose up, and all the people on the boat prayed and asked for help from their own gods, and threw cargo out to lessen the danger.
during this, jonah was asleep in the hold, despite what i assume would be quite a din above, with thunder and rain and people yelling in weird languages and crying out, and cargo shifting....

anyway, the captain found him and told him to pray to his god/gods for mercy, and a safe voyage.
not much is said of that, but everyone then drew lots to see who was to blame for the danger they're in. jonahs name was drawn. he explained he was a hebrew, and that he was running away from the Lord.
the sailors were like 'ahhhh! what a terrible idea! what do we do?'
jonah told them to throw him into the sea. the sailors didn't want to kill him, so they tried with all their might to get to shore.
when that didn't work, they begrudgingly threw jonah into the sea, asking Gods forgiveness, and the storm stopped at once. and jonah was eaten by a giant fish.
to say the sailors were terrified is probably an understatement. they served Him til the end of their days.
jonah sang a song in the fish, and in three days was spat up on a beach somewhere, and promptly made his way to ninevah. running away from his task wasn't particularly constructive, apparently. when he told the ninevahnians that in forty days they would be destroyed, they believed him, and prayed and fasted and wore sackcloth and did anything to show they were sorry, so they would not die.
God saw it, and decided not to destroy them.
jonah was like 'i told you this is what would happen, didn't i? thats why i didn't want to do this stupid task! you are a patient loving god who does not want to punish. now, let me die, i'm too angry.'
jonah went east from the city and waited to see if anything would happen to ninevah. god made a tree grow to give jonah shade. jonah was happy. the next day, God sent a worm to kill the tree, and jonah was angry and wished he were dead again.
God asked jonah what right he had to be angry about the plant. jonah told him he had every right.
God told jonah he pitied the tree, despite having done nothing for it, or even made it grow. how much more pity He should show for ninevah, which has over 120,000 children and as many animals.

this post seems a bit big. i guess the big thing this story tells me is you can't run from your fate, the task god made you to do. and that task may make no sense in your mind. but you have to do it.
people sometimes say free will is an illusion. i guess that depends on your definition of free will, and there are many definitions, despite what people may think.
if your definition of free will is an illusion, is that a bad thing?

also here is a page from an avengers versus xmen comic. spidermans in there. thats funny in itself. but i like the comments from the random guy at the bottom. enjoy.

thinking

at some point last week, i got bored. so i decided to read some bible passages.

i found a story of the moment God tells moses that the people he left at the base of the mountain are worshipping a calf statue made of solid gold, crediting it with all the things God did for them. God tells moses that they will promptly regret this decision, with all their mind, body, soul and spirit, if any survive, anyway. which they won't.
moses pleads with God to take it easy on them, citing the promise made to abraham, that the number of his descendants would rival the stars in the sky. god calms down, and agrees not to utterly destroy them.

what i got out of this is that, you shouldn't follow God blindly accepting what happens, never asking, never thinking, never telling Him how you feel about something. God made dogs for that. you're a person, a human being, so act like the intelligent individual you are, and ask questions, think, tell God how you feel (through, you know, prayer and stuff) sure, He already knows the questions you're going to ask, the thoughts you're going to have. but if you're not going to ask, or think, theres nothing for Him to know. so ask, and think.

unless you're an idiot, you already realise i'm not just talking about God (well, its still connected to Him, and you can still argue its part of God) i'm talking about the world. ask questions, explore, learn new things, never stop doing this. think about things, make connections between thoughts and things, and you'll find more questions, more things to find out. the day you stop asking questions, the day you stop learning new things, is the beginning of the end.

heres a picture of scully and mulder dancing. i hope it makes you laugh as hard as it made me.

my next blog post, very soon, will be a review of the book of jonah. i read that after this passage, and i think they had an odd continuity between them.

safe and sound

usually, when i get a day off work, or a fair bit of time home alone, i like to sit quietly, sometimes i'll think about things, or just let my mind be quiet, and meditate. its usually when i meditate that i think best, funnily enough.

the other day, i was trying to meditate, and i couldn't get a song out of my head. later i had a look at the lyrics, which spoke of, um, stuff to the effect of 'time keeps moving forward, stopping for no-one, so don't stop or you'll be left behind.' it never said that in the song, but you now have the idea of what the song was like.

anyway, while reading, i sort of came to a conclusion, a realisation. i already knew this, but i hadn't realised it. it hadn't sunk in until then. you know how you can know things, but until its sunk in to your brain, and you realise it, the knowledge is meaningless? of course you do! it was like that.
its a realisation as old as time, and if you haven't realised it yet, which i doubt,  you might want to, no pressure though, can't rush these things. you might cause yourself irreparable spiritual/psychological damage.
the lyrics, 'it can't be done safe and sound' refer to the search for self, who you are. now, i can't deny my little realisation has anything to do with that, but i'd be lying if i said it was that. i can't describe it in a simple sentence, so i'll explain it in an example.

i'm scared of speaking in front of an audience. Standing at a podium or on a stage, knowing there are people watching me, even if i also know they're half asleep, seems to create a gnawing black void in my stomach that comes dangerously close to sapping my physical and mental strength (it never does, though, but i think if i let it...)
but, i think its the same for every person who does public speaking. They feel the same thing. The difference between me and them is that i allow it to be a problem. i want to avoid that feeling, but others seek that out, because that feeling reminds them they are alive (i've heard people say that)
you know, emos cut themselves 'to feel something,' and thats weird, and stupid, and a little pathetic, but it has some truth in it, that feeling tells you you are alive. And cutting yourself seems a bit cowardly, at least when you get that feeling from something like public speaking, just thought i'd point that out.

and i gotta say, i certainly felt alive the few times i have done public speaking, internally fighting that all consuming abyss of fear and darkness. i use this example, because i'll be talking about an event at church this week. its pre written (although, in someone elses words... not good) so it won't be that bad, but its two pages, and i'm going to have to prepare for it. but, i'm going to do it, i'm not going to avoid it and, live safe and sound, because to live safe and sound is a misnomer. if you're safe and sound, and avoid these feelings, then you're not living, you simply exist.

heres a pic of uncommon hazard signs. i'll admit, i looked at some of these and muttered 'uh-oh.'

a couple of thoughts

first of all, yes, i seem to have basically stopped posting anything. i've decided to not worry about it,  i'll post when i have something, instead of trying to make something come out. when you're writing a book, you can't try to force your creative writing, you gotta let it flow, otherwise its shite. some writers, such as stephen king, usually make one of their characters a writer, or ones hobby is writing, so when he has a serious case of writers block, he can write about how that character has writers block, and can keep writing about writers block, and come up with some very good metaphors for it. a sort of fiction reflecting life deal.

anyway, what i have that makes me write this delightful piece of a generically nice-but-not-too-nice-thing, is bigfoot. or sasquatch (saskatchewan?) abominable snowman. but not just a man like ape thats 7 ft tall with red eyes, also the lizard man of a small county in the south USA of essentially the same description, the sightings of the mothman, a flying 7ft tall entity with red eyes, shadow people or the Grinning man, Aliens (greys) lake monsters, chupacabra, and a bunch of other things (loveland frog, owlman, a batman-thing, jersey devil, quinkans, physically manifest demons (and otherwise) occasional vamp or werewolf sighting) that if i were to mention all of them, every name for each, then this would be way too long.

with all of these entities, people have claimed to see them. many, many people, some of whom weren't in their right mind at the time, some that were, some that clearly mistook something ordinary for something extraordinary (case in point this isn't the one i was thinking of, apparently its quite common in england) some that have a tale so extraordianary its hard to understand how that even became an idea in their head, unless something physical inspired it.
but theres no physical proof. when a bigfoot gets shot (countless witnesses have shot it, hit one with a car) he always manages to walk away, leaving spent bullets deep in treetrunks and cars badly damaged. there have never been hairs or scat or blood or anything that proves his existence - it is possible though, to find footprints, that occasionally go for quite a distance. one in particular is called the 'cripplefoot' tracks from washington state, that seem to show a deformity on one foot, identified as club foot. for other creatures stated above and others, its the same. well, more or less. you don't find lake monster footprints.
well, except - but i'm getting off topic.

so theres no physical proof, but many people have at least thought they've seen something, and many of these people are said to be usually honest and sane. and in many cases there a re multiple witnesses, in many cases unknown to each other, reporting the same thing, with slight differences.
(warning. statements made after this point may be insane. wearing a tin foil hat is advised, but not necessary. if you don't, you're probably a reptilian)

presuming the witnesses actually did see something, and using the presumed fact that it/they can be seen by people who are 'away' from society temporarily, or just alone, sort of, um, seperated temporarily from the 'hivemind' of society, and that it/they (or whatever) leave very few physical signs of their/its existence....

what if, all of these entities, are the same thing, and their form changes by something in the witnesses mind. not not physical, just something we can't properly percieve or understand, essentially a paranormal entity in the purest sense.
 what if, they are some sort of mental construct by an entity, that needs to distract the witness for some reason. its not real, but people can see it, be manipulated by it, change course.. but of course, this one is frightening, as it makes you wonder what else might be a distraction. did you really have toast and eggs for breakfast? if so, was that your choice, or did something manipulate you in some small way to choose that option? why?

or perhaps, when groups (friends or strangers) of people temporarily leave the 'hivemind' of society, they, through an unidentified, traditionally impossible way, create their own temporary pocket of reality, which acts as the previous reality, but different. they see strange things, which leave their physical mark on that reality. they come back to our reality, which may not be the real one, simply the human one, where the physical marks do not exist. they insist it happened they saw it. but they don't realise its in a different reality. but because in this idea, people create reality, not physics, reality can change slightly. maybe bigfoot doesn't exist here, but a few footprints do. but thats scary too, because we have so much power, and we are incapable of controlling it. or that we choose this reality. whatever, man, its scary!

a couple of insane ideas that could maybe be true or something. maybe (prove me wrong)
also, theres a village in devon with the name WESTWARD HO!. i found it funny.
heres a video. a music video. for australia day.


are you not entertained? is this not why you are here?

WYD bytes 1.3: the vigil (dun dun DAAHHHHN)

seriously though, it was fun. and cold. and wet. and tired. when the sun came up, at about 8:00AM (a beautiful sight to me), i began to see dark squares flying all over the place, i was so tired my eyes couldn't properly function for about 10 -15 minutes. or maybe it was an hour. i don't really know.

but, lets start at the beginning.

so, when we got there, it was dusty, crowded, hot, and litter was everywhere. there was very little grass, but there was some kind of itchy hay everywhere.
it sort of made me think of a refugee camp after some kind of huge disaster. a very big disaster, seeing as many different countries flags were waving, everywhere in sight. i wasn't the only one to think that, many news shows and people we talked to said the same thing.
we trudged through the crowds, seeing the sights, cheering when we heard songs, chanting the chants, etc, for what seemed like simultaneously an hour, and no time at all. we found our area, D2, and found some of the other brisbanians who had also got in. they'd made a little makeshift tent type thing. it was pretty cool.
while we were walking, we could see the dust going up high in the air, seeming to bump into a giant, dark cloud. it filled up half the sky. and, as everyone knows, dust + clouds = rain. if that cloud wasn't going to rain before, it sure was going to rain now. it was very hot, so i kind of marvelled at that awesome natural mechanic: when large crowds gather, dust is sure to rise, and the temperature with it. when enough dust rises, its more likely to rain, lowering the temperature. the large crowd, unless shaken by the weather, is no longer hot. how amazing and awe inspiring is that? (i probably didn't explain that very well, but i think you know what i mean)
ok, a lot of stuff happened, and i'm spending too long explaining every little thing.
we set up our sleeping bags and mattresses and stuff. i had to set up a bit away from everyone else, near some guys from western australia. i set up, put my bags down there, and went away for a bit, came back to find my sleeping bag and mattress moved, and where i had put them, was a huge, angry colony of ants.
the guys there were cool, laughing as they said that i had to brush up on my bush skills, cityboy. they hadn't noticed the ant colony either, as it had been covered by the hay. i tried to get the ants out of my sleeping bag and off my mattress, moved it somewhere else (checking for ants) and stayed there for a bit.
before the main events of that night, adoration, a speech by the pope etc, i talked to a few columbians, traded stuff, you know, staple vigil stuff.
ok, now, the storm. it got windy all of a sudden, my sleeping bag/mattress got blown away a few times, i weighed it down with some stones, and went to help others who had tarps, brisbanians makeshft tent (made out of beach towels, string, walking sticks and a pilgrim pole) and making sure a few of the new vigil-friends i'd made were alright. the sky was pretty dark, if i was inside it would have been a beuatiful sort of dark, but outside, it could only be seen with the eyes of someone surveying danger on the horizon.
lightning raged across the sky quite a few times. someone said, i don't think they were catholic, now i think of it, that god had sent the storm as punishment for worshipping the pope instead of god. i thought that was stupid, despite a large part of the crowd shouting for the pope to stop the storm. that was a bit weird. there was a woman on the stage, or perhaps that was the english translator, asking us to pray to stop the storm. it seemed a bit like an idea of some cheap magic "ok, if we all pray, maybe the storm will stop! 1,  2,  3!"
anyway, it didn't stop, not for a while, although it was very short lived, about 5-10 minutes. i managed to get some shelter with the group from western australia. i was, shivering and freezing and soaking, it wasn't good.
before the storm, it was hot. then it was freezing after the storm, then it was lukewarm, a nice temperature.  we did adoration, talked, traded with people a bit, went to the toil- well, you get the idea.
when i decided to go to sleep, i went to my sleeping bag/mattress, and took the rocks off, i'd put on to keep it down from the wind. the first one crumbled in my hands. they were actually dirt-clay clumps, and they 'melted' all over my sleeping bag. i slapped most of it off, and slipped into my sleeping bag. i found myself waist deep in water. most people i had been talking to said their beds had dried very quickly, and i hoped mine had done the same. i was wrong.
i think i slept, but i'm not really sure. after a while, i couldn't stand it any more, and got out. the days were hot, and so was the first half of night. but the 2nd half was freezing. standing in a freezing cold paddock, soaking wet and in summer clothes, it was pretty uncomfortable. i stood there, trying to think of what to do for a very long time, i don't know how long. after a while, i asked a woman in a wheelchair what the time was. she said in a very thick US accent 'uh... its about ay qwarter payst four.'
i thought that group had been columbian, so i was kind of surprised to hear an american accent 'are you american?' i asked. she said no, she is columbian. i told her she spoke very good english.
i decided to get a nice hot coffee. i walked down there, talked to two amrican girls (i don't remember which state, but its famous for its paranormal activity)
and got a coffee. but you could only get an iced coffee. i got it anyway. i wandered around for a bit, heard news about stuff damaged by the storm, about 3 people injured (apparently six were injured in all, an more passed out due to the heat of the day)
i went back to D2, and waited for the sun to rise. a french guy came up to me, he only spoke french, so i didn't understand a lot of what he was saying. i asked if he spoke spanish or english, he said no. i think he was looking for some bags, or a sleeping bag.
then this columbian guy and his girlfriend come in. apparently they'd snuck in, with a group from brazil. they were pretty interesting. he'd been training to be a priest, but ended up not, because he um, like girls too much. his girlfriend asked if she could borrow my sleeping bag, she was cold. i explained it was wet, so it was a bit unusable at the moment. she found another sleeping bag, from some girls who'd left about half an hour before. they were pretty surprised when they came back, but very forgiving.

as always, there is a lot, a lot more. as i write this, more is coming back, and its difficult to believe all this happened in so short a time. WYD, or any event of such magnitude, or even just going to another country, or a new place, with friends and meeting new people, is an experience that words can't describe.

i don't know if i'll do another of these. i can't do it justice. it is good to remember everything, though.


heres a riddle. the answer? tune in next time! or look it up.
some will use me, while others will not,
some have remebered, while others forgot.
for profit or gain, i'm used expertly,
i can't be picked off the ground, or tossed into the sea.
only gained through patience and time,
can you, unravel my rhyme?

WYD bytes 1.2 : chuckles rides again

so, i don't know who chuckles is, i like to imagine him as sort of like pennywise the homocidal dancing clown, apparently with a horse, and maybe one of those wooden rubber band guns, or even a gun that shoots a flag saying 'BOOM!"
i guess he'd also have a cowboy hat. and yell 'hi ho silver! AWAY!'
if you're wondering why its in the title, i can't help you. there should always be a mystery in someones writings, something even the author doesn't know or understand. its like rule 16 or something.

anyway, back to the walk to the vigil in WYD madrid, that was in my last post.

so, after waiting for a few people, we left our accomodation, and got walking.
 after figuring out which way to go, we started our walk down the street. alot of it you really had to be there for, but just walking through a city, especially an old one like in europe, really nice, you see so much stuff that kinda blows your mind. to be honest, you wouldn't look twice at these things in your own town/city. you'd probably think they were ugly.

we stopped a bunch of times, it was a really hot day, through streets, up hills, through parks, etc. at one point we stopped in a park, and the sprinklers were on. we took our bags off and ran through them. there were nuns and monks running through them as well, it was really fun.

there were also people who had wisely decided to profit from this walk. people had filled up bottles of ice cold water and were selling them for 1 euro each. like 1-2 litres, it was good. i'd just run out of water when i saw them. its probably even luckier they had water at the vigil, otherwise it would have been a much longer night. soaked, freezing, tired, and dehydrated.

we met a bunch of people on the walk, including an irish group. i don't remember much about them, but i remember they were awesome. i mean, they were irish...
(come to think about it, i wish i'd met some welsh, i like them. there are two kinds of welsh accents; the one that sounds like a deformed monkey taught english by a german, and the other one, much rarer i think, i've only met one, but she had the most beautiful accent i'd ever heard. sort of like the sound version of the sight of flowers, or like rain, only quieter, and, uh, voicelike. or, um, whatever...)

just after we left the irish group, sitting under the shade of a coolibah tree, all the paths of other pilgrim groups began to converge, like the reverse branches of a tree, or a mamallian blood system toward the heart. there were also buses and trains, taking some tourists pilgrims to quatro viento.  many of the bishops, archbishops and so on did this. not archbishop batthersby (i hope i speeled that correctly) or the bishops with us. they walked in our group, which i think was really humble of them.

after a while, it became very crowded, and this was about 2 kilometres away. it was about this time we splintered off.
 after the crowded area, the closer we got, the less crowded it was. we walked through small streets, and people threw water on us because of the heat. (or was it?)
when we actually got there, it wasn't as bad as i thought it was when i saw it on tv that morning: but it was certainly kinda foreboding. it looked like a refugee camp. dusty, grassless, flat, crowded 0% shade, rubbish everywhere. but the main thing was, we were there.

next time, on WYD bytes 1.3 : Dead Men tell no tales, i'll tell the story of the stuff i remember at the vigil.
yes, storms, iced coffee, toilets damaged hosts, columbians getting in like mexicans across the US border, stealing peoples sleeping bags, and a very rude french guy, who could only speak french and german.


because i can, and more importantly because i want to, here, um, this.... enjoy.
(its a link)
http://www.youtube.com/user/communitychannel/
of course, i'm quite sure you've seen this already, so i show you this: